One really minimalist report to emerge last week comes from the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts.    It’s called “Securing strategic leadership in the learning and skills sector” (which includes us, at least according to their definitions).

It is, as I’ve already said, mercifully short.    And to the point.    Or, at least, to their point.    This is after all, the Public Accounts Committee, not the Education Committee.

So what does it say?    Well, that there is too much red tape, too much duplication and wasted effort from overlapping roles, too little dialogue between colleges and local businesses, and too many failing colleges.    Familiar stuff, robustly put.

“Colleges will have to offer the courses which employers and learners want and for which they are prepared to pay.    They will therefore have to be more attuned to learners’ career aspirations and the needs of business.    They will also have to develop workable fees policies to help make less commercial courses sustainable” says committee chairman, Edward Leigh.

He goes on (as quoted in the Guardian) to argue that some 35 colleges (out of about 400) were “not performing satisfactorily . . . They damage the reputation of the further education sector.    The taxpayer should not have to support continuing failure”.    Ah, the familiar strains of decimation, of another politician wishing he were a Roman Centurian, unfettered by the petty constraints of modern morality, free to kill off every tenth college and put the fear of God (or Tony) in the rest.

No-one escapes criticism.    “It is not clear how the planned £40 million reduction in the Learning and Skills Council’s running costs will result in less bureaucracy” say the authors (conclusion 2) with only the merest hint of irony.

And some of the recommendations are quite radical.    “The DfES and the LSC should consider whether a single organization such as the National Audit Office should have responsibility for commissioning and co-ordinating the audits of further education colleges”. (conclusion 4).

Can’t happen?    Depends who’s the next PM.    If it’s Gordon . . .

Source:   Public Accounts Committee Report
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